Its most notable partner: Joe Lonsdale, the cofounder of
Palantir, a secretive, fast-growing startup backed by Facebook investor Peter Thiel.

Also on board: Gideon Yu, the former CFO of Facebook and original
investor in Square at Khosla Ventures, who's now president of
the San Francisco 49ers. The website
describes Yu as an "advisor and team member."

Formation 8's pitch to startups is that it can take them to the
fast-growing markets of Asia. It has offices in Palo Alto,
Calif.; Beijing and Shanghai in China; Seoul; and Singapore. It
plans to invest in information technology and energy technology.

A source tells us the firm had raised $180 million by May and has
now closed on $250 million in investments from limited partners.
(Formation 8 did not respond to an inquiry about its public
launch.)

The site lists two portfolio companies, Revinate and
ContextLogic.

But we hear from our industry source that Formation 8 has also
invested in Blend Labs; Simpler; Backplane, the maker of
social-media management tools that runs Lady Gaga's
website; RelateIQ, a big-data startup;
SkyGrid;
LearnSprout; and Delphi, a
startup where Lonsdale is also chairman.